The invention relates to a dental floss holder that includes a member that carries a dental floss supply, and has a fork formation at one end so that the dental floss holder has a track to permit a piece of the dental floss to be tightened between the free ends of the fork fingers.
Prior known dental floss holders have, in practice, the drawback that they do not permit an easy and stable attachment of the ends of the dental floss segment to be extended between the outer ends of the fork fingers.
One object of the invention is therefore to provide a dental floss holder of the mentioned type that provides a simple and stable attachment of the ends of the dental floss segment that is tightened and extending across the fork fingers and that also provides an easy removal of the used dental floss segment.
Another object is to provide a dental floss holder that has a supply that easily provides a new dental floss segment.
The object of the invention is completely or partly achieved with the dental floss holder according to the appended claim 1.
Embodiments of the dental floss holder of the present invention are described in the dependent patent claims.
According to a fundamental distinctive feature of the invention the dental floss supply is formed by a roll or a spool of dental floss so that the roll is mounted with its axle across the longitudinal axis of the holder body so that the dental floss from the roll to the fork extends substantially radially to the roll. Further, a catch member is available to prevent the roll from rotating. In this way, the end portion of the dental floss segment that is to be used is attached simply because it cannot be pulled out from the roll due to its orientation relative to the load direction of the end of the dental floss.
The dental floss thus extends from the roll along the body to one of the fork finger ends and from there to the other fork finger end and then back along this fork finger to the attachment mechanism on the body. The fork fingers can be bent to make the teeth cleaning easier with the dental floss segment that extends between the fork finger ends.
In the preferred embodiment there are manually operable release members provided to temporarily release the rotational lock of the dental floss roll so that there is a bearing that permits rotation of the roll.